This DCL has been archived.
TITLE: Innovation through Institutional Integration (I3)
DATE: 3/22/2011
NSF 11-042 Innovation through Institutional Integration (I3)
No future Innovation through Institutional Integration (I3) competition is
planned at this time. NSF has granted approximately thirty awards associated
with this activity (see http://nsf-i3.org/). The projects are active and
provide examples of effective practices and lessons learned.
Innovation through Institutional Integration (I3)challenges faculty,
administrators, and others in institutions to think strategically about the
creative integration of awards. Creativity, connectivity, integration, and
synergy are keys to innovation and to developing human and institutional
capacity to full potential. In both research and education, it is the forging
of new links between ideas or methodologies that were previously disparate
that frequently paves the way for innovation. When institutions optimize the
benefits to be derived from the creative integration of intellectual
perspectives or different domains of work, they create important opportunities
for making progress on some of the most important scientific, technological,
and educational challenges of our time.
On individual campuses across the nation, for example, significant synergistic
potential can be ignited when scholars and educators in diverse disciplines
work together. Similarly, NSF awardees can harness new synergies by working
together with other NSF-funded projects on their own campus or with other
partners. When the results of these synergies are both compatible with and
beneficial for the institution(s) involved, successful innovation can be
created.
I3 grant projects are aligned with and reside in nine Education and Human
Resources (EHR) programs that advanceI3 goals:
* Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST)
* Research on Gender in Science and Engineering (GSE)
* Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP)
* Innovative Technology Experiences for Students and Teachers (ITEST)
* Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP)
* Math and Science Partnership (MSP)
* Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program
* Research in Disabilities Education (RDE)
* Tribal Colleges and Universities Program (TCUP)
Past efforts at integration have shown that opportunities for synergy can be
created most successfully when collaborative projects include:
* Clear support from senior administrators;
* A cogent plan of action that includes expectations and staff development;
* Open cross-institutional dialogue that is supported and encouraged;
* A common campus-wide vision and value system that stresses the importance of
synergistic efforts;
* The formation of a campus network with a set of individuals who take
ownership and provide leadership for the initiative.
The campus network is an important aspect of successful collaboration at every
stage of development and is critical to the sustainability and enhancement of
created partnerships as well as the institutionalization of new innovations.
This network can (a) foster communication across the campus to encourage the
formation and dissemination of new ideas, values, and learning; (b) serve as a
source of leadership to promote and carry out integrative activities; and (c)
develop and sustain existing connections while continually expanding
collaborative efforts.
This activity has the following interrelated goals:
* Increase synergy and collaboration across NSF-funded projects and
within/between institutions, towards an educational environment where
artificial boundaries are significantly reduced and the student experience
is more fully integrated;
* Expand and deepen the impact of NSF-funded projects and enhance their
sustainability;
* Provide additional avenues to broaden participation through workforce
development, especially for those underrepresented in Science, Technology,
Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) research and education; attend to
seamless transitions across critical educational junctures; and/or provide
more effectively for a globally engaged workforce;
* Promote innovative programming, policies, and practices to encourage the
integration of STEM research and education; and
* Encourage STEM educational or related research in domains that hold promise
for promoting intra- or inter-institutional integration and broader impacts.
Projects facilitate either (a) inter-institutional or (b) intra-institutional
efforts and are expected to incorporate a depth and quality of creative,
coherent, and strategic actions that extend beyond commonplace approaches to
normal institutional operations.
Using currently held active grants as a basis for the integration targeted in
this activity, the I3 grantee focuses on achieving "value-added" outcomes in
broadening participation, strengthened critical junctures in STEM student
pathways, integration of research and education, achieving a globally engaged
workforce, and/or research and evaluation. The strategies engaged in these
projects that work successfully to achieve effective integration of multiple
awards may pose as notable models for supporting synthesis at institutions not
currently participating in I3.
[list of I3 grant awards]
See the Innovation through Institutional Integration website at
http://nsf-i3.org/.
National Science Foundation
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Arlington, Virginia 22230